


Come Take a Trip in My Airship

by mechanicaljewel



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Blimps & Dirigibles, F/F, Fluff, M/M, Matchmaking, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21843175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mechanicaljewel/pseuds/mechanicaljewel
Summary: Bertie's bungling results in grave offenses to the old feudal spirit, and Honoria could also use his help. Will he be able to pull out no fewer than two victories with nothing but his own sweet mind, the tender places of his heart, and a song?
Relationships: Honoria Glossop/Original Female Character(s), Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster
Comments: 18
Kudos: 73
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Come Take a Trip in My Airship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cuddyclothes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuddyclothes/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, cuddyclothes! I love any chance to return to Jeeves and Bertie and was very happy to match on them. However, I also blame you for getting ["Come Take a Trip in My Airship"](https://archive.org/details/airship1904) stuck in my head. Speaking of, you requested a blimp; I humbly pray that you will accept a rigid airship.
> 
> Having reread the early appearances of Honoria's to figure out where I was going to take her, I kind of see this story taking place fairly early on in Bertie and Jeeves's association as well.

Jeeves was in a fit of pique. Well, no. I don't believe it's possible for Jeeves to be in any kind of fit. Jeeves was in an intense stoicism of pique.

"Dash it all, Jeeves!" I at last erupted after the umpteenth single word answer to my usual morning consultation about the day to come. "I don't see why you should be so bally opposed to this venture! It provides the fastest escape from the aspiring fiancée, a task for which you have otherwise always been willing to pull out all the stops. Why is this where you draw the line?"

"The speed at which we return to Europe is immaterial to the task at hand, sir. Only the promptness by which we board a means of conveyance, which historically has been a ship," Jeeves reproached me.

"Yes, but ships have the fatal flaw of stopping at other ports and taking on additional passengers, and I for one would not put it past this particular specimen of the fairer s., in her pursuit of yours truly, to train it up to Boston and cut us off at the pass, as it were."

"The possibility is a most remote one, sir."

"Aha! So you admit it _is_ a possibility! I have you there, Jeeves. An impossibility is infinitely preferable to a possibility, however improbable. Didn't Sherlock Holmes say that?"

"I believe sir is thinking of, 'when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.' The aphorism is not particularly applicable to the current situation."

"Yes, yes, fine, but my point remains valid. Once we alight from Lakehurst, it will be smooth sailing, so to speak, until we touch down in Fritzhaven. And under three days no less!"

"Friedrichshafen, sir," he corrected in a perfect German accent.

"Yes, there," I continued, "We will be there before you could say…whatever longish German word describes your current mood. Surely there must be one, with how dourly imperious you are being right now. A perfectly German mood if ever there was one."

After an uncharacteristic pause, he replied, " _Gretchenfrage_."

"I will take your word for it, Jeeves. Or their word. What have you."

"Goethe's specifically, sir."

"He is quite welcome to it. I have no time for it. Put Goethe and all of his apt words from your mind."

"Yes, sir."

"Right, so where were we? Ah yes. Jeeves, the point is the young master has acquired two tickets for passage on the Graf Zeppelin, thus we shall shortly be passaging aboard the Graf Zeppelin, and that's that!"

The room filled with such icy silence, I was certain my morning cuppa had frozen into a small amber dome, or at least should have done.

"Yᴇs, sɪʀ." Jeeves intoned, small caps in his voice.

In an attempt to warm up the bedchamber, or at least persuade Jeeves to return to a more congenial typesetting, I said, "I think this voyage will be dashed exciting, what? Where is your sense of adventure, Jeeves? Your Viking ancestors must be hanging their heads in shame, or at least tutting at you most severely."

"The Vikings were a seafaring people, sir."

"Yes, but if they were good Vikings, they were carried off by winged volcanoes, were they not?"

"Volcanoes, sir?"

Oh dash it, that definitely wasn't it. "You know, beautiful fillies with wings. Or their horses had wings."

"A filly is a horse, sir."

" _Females_ , Jeeves. Females who were either themselves winged, or rode upon some kind of winged mount, but not volcanoes."

"Valkyries, sir."

"That's the chap. Or beazle. The time has come for you to receive your Viking birthright and take to the skies."

"As you stated earlier, sir, that honor was believed to be visited upon the souls of the dead, those fallen in battle specifically."

At last, I'd twigged it. I imagined myself claiming careful psychological maneuvering when I told this story at the Drones, but they would never believe it anyway. "So, it's not so much the flying you object to, as the potential for crashing, is it Jeeves?"

"The inflammable nature of the airship would rather appropriately echo the flaming funeral boats of the Vikings, sir."

My frustration at Jeeves's obstinance gave way to a tender instinct to assuage my heretofore unflappable loyal retainer's secret phobia. "There's nothing to be concerned about in that regard. The Graf Zeppelin hasn't once crashed or caught on fire!"

"With all due respect, sir, what typically remains after the conflagration of an airship is well beyond repair, so the same could be said of any of the extant vehicles of this nature. But no sir, my concern is not for any incendiary potential of the craft but rather–" at last we've gotten to the bottom of it! "–the accommodations you have secured on the vessel."

I dare say the mind boggled at this revelation. "What rot, Jeeves! I booked a two-bed cabin! One of only two on board! Plus its own, er, I suppose dining table? Maybe more of an end table with chairs, but still! The accommodations are positively superlative under the circs!"

"The key term is 'two-bed', sir. It is not proper for a valet to share a room with his employer."

Well dash it, I hadn't thought of that when booking the tickets. Whenever we traveled, Jeeves would typically sleep in some mobile equivalent of his lair, both in hotels and en route on ships and trains alike. Whether I was simply too wound up by the desperate need to escape or blinded by the novelty of luxury balloon travel, I had indeed booked us a single cabin. This also why Jeeves usually makes the travel arrangements. "Well, Jeeves. I apologize profusely that Bertram's mental negligence acted up and has caused such a grievance offense to the old feudal spirit. When we get to the airfield this afternoon, I shall correct the error forthwith."

"Thank you, sir."

~ ~ ~

Jeeves had not spoken a single extraneous syllable to me from the moment the ticket agent told us that there was no extra cabins available. As they were only twenty cabins on board, it was perhaps to be expected, but h. springs e., what?

As Jeeves put away my clothes for the voyage in the dresser, I pled my case. "Jeeves, old chap, you know I am deeply impressed by your dedication to the old feudal spirit, and the whole right-and-proper, everyone-and-everything-in-its-place whatnot. But it _is_ just two nights, and these are exi-…exiguous? exigenesis?" I paused, but when Jeeves did not proffer the correct word, I fully grasped the gravity of the situation. "The point is the circs laid out before us are beyond either of our power to change, and we can bally well make the best of them! Surely the gods of a feudality will not frown over much at you when I am the cause of your current plight?"

"One must exhaust all other options before such liberties could possibly be taken, and perhaps not even then," Jeeves replied with a voice like topiary snips clipping down every unruly and disobedient branch that stuck out.

"Other options!" I cried. "We've established that there are no other cabins available!"

"There is the lounge and dining area, sir. I intend to avail myself of that space this night and the following."

"Oh come now, Jeeves. It's not feudal for us to share a cabin, but it's proper for you to sprawl out, limbs akimbo, on a dining booth?"

"Indeed not, sir. Rather, I shall be sitting in a discreet corner chair with a book to appear to have merely drifted off should sleep happened to take me."

"You mean you're going to sit up all night at a table in your sleeping togs and try _not_ to sleep for two nights?"

"No sir, I shall wear my usual livery."

I gawped at him for a few moments, before mentally throwing up my hands. Then I physically threw up my hands and brought them down on my head, running my f.'s through my h. as I sighed despondently. "Jeeves, your commitment to your principles and fortitude in the face of trials are commendable. But rest assured, I would not think less of you for changing your mind."

"Sir is most gracious, however moot the sentiment."

"Yes, well. Tinkerty-tonk." I said morosely, and dragged myself myself to the lounge in question.

~ ~ ~

After procuring a g.-and-t., I began musing on the whole rummy affair, when the question instinctively arose in my mind, _what would Jeeves do in this situation?_ I blinked at the thought. _Yes, the old feudal spirit will was all well and good, but all other options have not yet been exhausted_ , I thought as I watched the lounge fill up with the other passengers. Surely there had to be other people traveling together in separate cabins who would prefer, or at least wouldn't mind, trading their two cabins for my one? But of the people traveling together, I learned that most were indeed sharing only one cabin. As it turned out, there were these sort of hammocks with mattresses that could be hung over the proper bed, a detail I had not noticed in my rush to buy the tix. Plenty of these pairs would happily trade their one cabin for my bigger one cabin with the two beds on the floor. Most stopped talking to me or left in a huff when I explained I needed two cabins. I almost had an older couple traveling with their newlywed daughter and son-in-law ready to make the switch, when the s-i-l dragged me away, lamenting that it was bad enough that her parents were accompanying them on the honeymoon, but this was the only leg of the trip he and his bride would have any _privacy_ (he eyed me meaningfully on that particular _mot_ ). By the time we had returned, the girl had pointed out that the two cabins separately cost more than my one, at which point the father wheeled on me for trying to swindle them, and I legged it as far away as I could, which was about ten feet yonder, but it was enough.

And that's how I found myself face-to-face with Honoria Glossop, one of my once and dreadfully probably future fiancées. Still, my own _preux chevalier_ code would not let me simply flee her as well (and there was in fact too little space for me to go anywhere I was welcome now), and so when recognition dawned in her eyes and she let fly a hearty "Bertie!", I smiled and returned the greeting before she gathered me in her rugby scrum of a hug.

Once we settled at her small table, she gushed, "It must be fate you're here, Bertie!" Now, Honoria was a sensible girl, hardly sop in the Madeline Bassett mold, so I felt more confused than as her potential prey. She continued, also uncharacteristically dropping her voice and leaning in, "Bertie, you know why I wanted to marry you, right?"

My heart launched into marching band mode, and I could barely hear myself over its pounding. "Because my old Aunt Agatha put you up to it, surely. You could hardly have wanted to chain yourself to a loony like me, good thing your father caught that!" 

She let out a hearty laugh and clobbered me on the shoulder before modulating back to _sotto voce_ . "But seriously Bertie, you _know_ why. Maybe you didn't realize I share your...disposition, but I wanted to marry you for the same reason you did _not_ want to marry me."

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"Oh come now, Bertie," she said, slapping the table. She was still smiling, but clearly only a few steps away from losing her patience with me. She leaned in closer. I leaned in closer, hoping imitation would endear her ever so slightly to me. "What I mean to say is, when I said you would have to sack Jeeves when we married, I was testing you."

"Oh? Did I pass?" I remember objecting quite vociferously, so I assumed I had not.

But she grinned wickedly. "Oh yes, you did. I wouldn't have actually made you get rid of him, you know. It would have been a tidy part of the arrangement. But I can't say I don't understand your disdain for such a crowded arrangement, even with a wife who would have given you all the space you needed."

My face must have betrayed my bafflement, only Honoria must have read it more as fear (though to be fair, there was no small amount of that in there too). If she had lowered her voice anymore, only the whales much too far below us and moving in the entirely wrong medium would have been able to hear her. "Bertie, you don't have to pretend with me. I know you're in love with Jeeves."

I strangled the yelp of surprise about to jump out of my throat into a cough, while cold dread crept into Honoria's visage. "Did I...misread…? Are you not…?"

Out of sheer exhaustion, I deflated and answered honestly "Oh, maybe. Potentially. Not yet, perhaps?" A huge tangle that had been weaving its way through my insides, growing tighter and and ensnaring more and more of them year after year suddenly went slack. I chuckled nervously and made another pass at it. "The answer to your question is that I rather could see myself going absolutely dippy for the man some day. I really couldn't say if I'm there yet. He's so...inscrutable. Not having much by way of feedback from him throws a bit of a spanner in the works, what?"

Honoria's face softened and with gentle eyes she nodded. "Yes, I understand. Shielding yourself from the risk before you know if there's any chance of reward."

My heart warmed as I recalled what had started this conversation. She _understood_. Apparently better than I did, because she recognized it in me when I had barely been able to put it to words myself. I cleared my throat, "So is there, ah, someone you've let yourself take a risk on yet?"

Her face flushed and she nodded. "Well, I'm about to. That's why I was so happy to see you. Actually, I had hoped I could–"

"–ask Jeeves, yes that's usually the reason people are happy to see me."

"But from the sound of it, that's not really an option anyway." Her face didn't exactly fall, but certainly tripped and stumbled slightly.

"Well, that and he's currently giving me the cold shoulder anyway."

Honoria sighed indulgently at me. "Bertie, what are we going to do with you?"

I had a horrifying flash of my Aunt Agatha threatening to have Honoria mold me back when she attempted to marry me off. Though now with all the facts before me, I knew that there was no risk of that, but I was still keen to get off the subj. of Bertram's own failures. "Never mind that, what are we going to do with you and this beazle of yours?"

"Evelyn," Honoria said dreamily. It transpired that Evelyn Trevelyan is a pro female golfer of some note with whom Honoria had already been acquainted before running into her at some tournament or other on Long Island. This chance encounter very quickly had them joined at the hip, gallivanting about L.I. and its environs, doing the sort of sportish things that they both enjoyed, which again reminded me why I was so very grateful not to have gotten hitched to Honoria; "arrangement" or no, Bertram would have been roped into some strenuous outdoors activity sooner or later, mark my words. Anyway, the l. and s. of it was that the fair Evelyn was also aboard the G.Z. with us, and Honoria had entertained the notion of making some declaration of her tender pash before the flight was over.

"Officially making it a whirlwind romance, what?" I remarked before clearing my throat. "So, ah, are you sure she _understands_?" I asked, eyeing her meaningfully not unlike the young groom from earlier. The situations were reasonably similar, I suppose.

Honoria rolled her eyes at me. "Bertie, put your eyes away, you look like a scallop. And well, she's a woman pro golfer, if she doesn't _understand_ understand, she'd still understand."

I had to pause to work out which "understanding" was which, but once I got it, I smiled at her. "Jolly good, then. So when do I get to meet this apple of your eye?"

~ ~ ~

At dinner, as it happened. La Trevelyan was a redhead about a head shorter than Honoria, but with all the same gusto as her secret admirer. She seemed on the stockier side of things at first glance, until I got a closer look and realized she was wearing at least three layers of clothes and with a bulky cardigan on top of all that. She noticed my scrutiny, but thankfully only laughed at me for it.

"This is my second leg of a round-trip flight. It can get _cold_ over the Atlantic at night. And since it's not safe to heat the thing," she shook her head. "The speed can't be beat, but on the whole, I've found the whole experience to be overrated."

"Oh, but look at that sunset," I said, poking my fork towards the window we were pressed against. "Where else could you see the sunset from this high up?"

"Most mountains. We're only about 650 feet up in here," she turned her gaze now to Honoria. " Did I tell you about the time I watched the sunset on Mount Olympus? Not the peak, of course, you'd be mad to start your descent that late, but probably about halfway. Definitely above 650 feet," she grinned proudly at Honoria. Was there an _understanding_ there? I still couldn't tell.

Honoria rested her chin on her hand while gazing deep into Evelyn's eyes. "Wow, sitting among the gods..." Evelyn chuckled. 

"Oh you can do that on an airship, too!" I interjected, feeling oddly compelled to defend this mode of transportation that had mostly just given me trouble and, now that Evelyn mentioned it, was quite nippy. "Don't you know the song?"

"Song?" Evelyn queried.

"Bertie," Honoria fixed me with a gaze I might have called steely but for our newfound camaraderie. So I indulged them both:

> _Come take a Trip in my Airship_  
>  _come sail away to the stars_  
>  _We'll travel to Venus_  
>  _we'll sail away to Mars_

Another glance at Honoria, and I realized how gravely I had miscalculated. Her eyes had gone from steel to pure tungsten. Yet even knowing how each note I sang was another n. in the c. of both our friendship and her possible romance, I carried on:

> _No one will see while we're kissing_  
>  _No one will know as we swoon_

And wouldn't you know it, her eyes turned first to diamonds, then towards Evelyn, who had chosen the moment of the word _kissing_ to press her shoulder discreetly against Honoria's. There was indeed an _understanding_.

> _So come take a Trip in my Airship_  
>  _and we'll visit the Man in the Moon_

The rest of the dining room smattered some polite applause. I turned to nod my gratitude at my captive audience, I found myself now in Jeeves's gaze. I'd call it bismuthy-- a kind of silvery-pink feel that settled in and soothed my stomach.

I turned back to the girls and found I was mostly invisible to them. I cleared my throat and did two good deeds with one stone. They parted shortly thereafter, innocently enough for those without _understanding_.

I strode over to Jeeves, tucked in his corner and his livery with his book, prepared to rough it out there in the draftiest part of that balloon. Before he could dish out whatever "good evening, sir" he had prepared, I held out the key to La Trevelyan's cabin. "I'll be straight across the corridor from you, Jeeves," I said, holding up Honoria's key.

I thought I saw another ray of bismuth slipped through his veener before he caught himself and started to say, "But sir, your luggage and–"

"Can be shuffled around in the morning, what?"

And with the faintest whiff of a smile around his lips, he replied, "Of course, sir."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks are in order to [airships.net](https://www.airships.net/) for the bulk of the research in this fic.
> 
> It was actually really difficult for me not to have this climax with the zeppelin crashing (#toosoon), because [they did that a lot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY6U0mj3e5Q) to the point of absurdity. 
> 
> A few little Easter eggs:  
> \- When Jeeves says "Gretchenfrage" as his German word, he's basically admitting that he's avoiding answering Bertie's actual question.  
> \- I took Evelyn Trevelyan's name from the default human female player character's name in _Dragon Age: Inquisition_.  
> \- Bismuth is the queerest element: its chemical symbol is Bi, and though it may sometimes hide under a protective silvery later to blend in with the other metals, its true colors are [all of them](https://www.thisiswhyimbroke.com/large-bismuth-crystal/).


End file.
